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The Other Side Of Silence PHILIP KERR

The Other Side Of Silence

PHILIP KERR

Other works by PHILIP KERR

Publication: Quercus, 2016, London

First edition. Signed by the author. Fine in fine dust jacket. The French Riviera, 1956. A world-weary Bernie Gunther is working under a false name as a hotel concierge. He plays bridge to stave off boredom and misses his old detective life. Then his past walks through the door in the shape of Harold Hennig, a former captain in the Nazi security service, who, in 1945, was responsible for the deaths of thousands including a woman Bernie loved. Hennig's target on the Cote d'Azur is a famous resident with a dark past and plenty to hide - the writer, Somerset Maugham. A shared love of bridge draws Bernie to Maugham's magnificent villa, where Maugham tells him of a very compromising photograph. Taken in 1937, it shows Maugham among a group of naked men beside a swimming pool - one of whom is the infamous spy and homosexual, Guy Burgess, who, with Donald Maclean, has recently defected to Moscow. Hennig has the photograph and is demanding $50,000 for its release. Bernie is reluctant to become Maugham's agent but his former life has made him as vulnerable to blackmail as Maugham himself. Not only that - he has a massive score to settle with Hennig.

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